MEM Author Bethany C. Morrow On the Need for Representation Throughout the Publishing Industry

Today’s guest on the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire podcast is Bethany C. Morrow, author of MEM which released this month from Unnamed Press. Bethany graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in Sociology (but took notable detours in the Film and Theatre departments). Following undergrad, she studied Clinical Psychological Research at the University of Wales, in Great Britain before returning to North America to focus on her literary work.

Bethany joined me to talk about her query process, as well as writing in a post-election world as a black woman, and the concern that minority authors need to be looking for agents that want to represent them for a long-term career, not just as a response to a trend as well as whether or not white writers should attempt to write main characters of color, and the difference between that and being inclusive in your writing.

3 Steps to Writing Success

 by Maxine Kaplan

It’s a sad fact of life that some of the most imaginative people you’ll meet are also the most paralyzed. It’s even sadder when that person is you—or, since this is a post about me, I might as well just as say me.

I spent my life as a chronic procrastinator: clinically disorganized, in my own head to a debilitating degree, always sure that I wasn’t good enough just yet. Those qualities make writing a book hard. But I wanted to write a book. I wanted to write a lot of books. And eventually I did: The Accidental Bad Girl, my debut, came out from Abrams / Amulet on May 15.

So how did I do it? Was it because I suddenly had a surge of muse-given lightning-like inspiration? Um, no. Was it because I had an unexpected amount of free time and was bored? Hell no.

It happened because I managed to put myself in a position where my nerd-based anxiety and Jewish guilt worked for me for once. Follow along my step-by-step process to success:

Step One: Keep your expectations for yourself low, but do keep them.

As mentioned above, when drafting The Accidental Bad Girl, time wasn’t something I had an overabundance of. I had a full-time job, close family in town, and a burgeoning relationship that eventually turned into a marriage. I also don’t sleep and am always exhausted. Some nights writing was the last thing I wanted to do.

Here’s what I did: I set my daily expectations of myself so low that if I didn’t fulfill them I would feel like an ass. I wrote 500 words a day, one day off per week. The words didn’t have to be good. I could add unnecessary adverbs if I needed them to fill out the quota. But I HAD to put 500 new words on the page every, single day.

And I did. Because if I didn’t, I would feel incredibly guilty and unbearably like Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites—living in a den of slack. I was a middling, ambivalent student in high school, but straight As in college broke me of that option. It meant too much to me to not be a slacker, so I wasn’t.

500 words a day sounds like nothing. That’s because it is. But eventually it makes a book.

Step Two: Make friends with smart people who like to read

Unless you’re Krysten Ritter, chances are you do not have an agent or editor to lean on for notes once you churn out an inevitably crummy first draft. And maybe you’re thinking, “I’m a good reader; I can edit this all by myself.”

You are wrong. You will have a million thoughts about your work. Some will be correct, some will be ridiculous, and some will be neither. You need other voices to contribute to a critical mass of opinions, to verbalize your blind spots—I needed someone to tell me I had forgotten to put in stakes for god’s sake. So make some friends.

Why is it important that they’re friends? Because you have to want them to be critical; you have to want all the actionable notes you can possibly assemble. You have to want to be told what’s not working. Being told what’s good about your work feels good, but it’s not really all that useful. And it’s easier to want criticism from people you’re already pretty sure like you.

You could do what I did and luck into a crew of people who turned into writers when you were eleven (see my acknowledgments page). But the internet is a wonderful thing. The Electric Eighteens debut group was my lifeline this year—you can find your people if you look.

Step Three: Calm down and be patient

This is the hardest one, but I discovered a basic truth when writing my first book—and The Accidental Bad Girl is the first book I wrote, not just the first I sold. If you internalize this lesson, it will change your writing life:

You cannot fix what you do not write. You cannot polish what you do not revise. Go step by step and celebrate whenever you finish an iteration of making your story more its ultimate self. Keep going. It will take forever. But it’s there.

Look, I’m no guru. I’m just a thirty-something who doesn’t know how to put on eye makeup and writes in bed even though it’s bad for my back. I don’t meditate even though I should. I don’t do yoga, even though I really should. But I can do nerd. I can do guilt. I can do stubborn.

And sometimes that’s all it takes.

Nadia L. King On Using Your Time Strategically

Welcome to the SNOB - Second Novel Ominipresent Blues. Whether you’re under contract or trying to snag another deal, you’re a professional now, with the pressures of a published novelist compounded with the still-present nagging self-doubt of the noobie. How to deal?

Today's guest for the SNOB (Second Novel Omnipresent Blues) is Nadia L. King. An Australian author, Nadia was born in Dublin, Ireland and is a YA author and short story writer. Nadia's book, Jenna's Truth, is available from Serenity Press.

Is it hard to leave behind the first novel and focus on the second?

Leaving behind the writing of my first book, Jenna's Truth, hasn’t been difficult. Despite being deep in the editing phase of my second manuscript, I am starting to get distracted by an idea for a third manuscript. Thoughts keep popping into my head. I ignore them when I should probably write them down in a new notebook! The third manuscript will tackle the subject of self-harm so whenever I come across an article for research I save it for later, much later…

At what point do you start diverting your energies from promoting your debut and writing / polishing / editing your second?

I really don’t know when you stop promoting your first book. I’m still very much connected to Jenna’s Truth (a second edition is being launched by Serenity Press in April) so I’m definitely trying to push the book as much as I can without being annoying to my readers and anyone nice enough to follow me on social media (a difficult task for authors to balance).

My second manuscript isn’t contracted so I don’t have a hard deadline to meet, but that uncertainty comes with its own stresses. Right now, I especially need the eyes of an editor, but not being contracted means I don’t have that option without funding an editor myself. I swing between polishing and promoting, and hopefully I’m getting the balance right.

Your first book landed an agent and an editor, and hopefully some fans. Who are you writing the second one for? Them, or yourself?

I write for my readers—for the teens whose lives I hope to influence. Writing always has a selfish element, but ultimately I’m writing to bring about a little change in the world (that may be naive, but it’s definitely a big part of my motivation for writing).

Is there a new balance of time management to address once you’re a professional author?

Time management is tricky for all writers. I’m a YA author and try to get to as many schools and libraries as possible to share my message with teens and their caregivers. All the time I spend on marketing myself as a speaker means time away from writing which can be frustrating. But connecting with audiences is incredibly rewarding and well worth time away from my desk.

What did you do differently the second time around, with the perspective of a published author?

The second time around, I tried to focus more. I didn’t blog as much or write as many book reviews. I tried to use my time more strategically. Practically, I invested in Scrivener which has made drafting and editing far more efficient. I’m interested to see what I’ll do differently next because I think I’ve learnt more in the last year than I ever have before. I’m becoming more confident in my writing process.